Though the term â€œcitizenâ€ began as a designation for an inhabitant of a city, its impliedboundaries have been redrawn to name an allegiance to other territorial institutions: the state,the nation, as well as loosely continental associations (such as the European Union). In additionto mapping these geographic allegiances, the rights of the citizen have been variously conceivedas hereditary (Edmund Burke), and natural, and so presumptively inalienable (Thomas Paine).This seminar examines the relationship between competing formulations of the citizen, asarticulated not only in different historical crises (such as revolution, civil war, and emancipationmovements), but as a central legacy of the anomalous affiliations enabled by fiction.

Questions to address include: How does fiction reflect and reconfigure territorial affiliations?What are the aesthetics of citizenship? Are fictions of citizenship organized by the samedistinctions as civic law? How does the rhetoric of rights inform different notions of the literary?How is citizenship shaped by its categorical exclusions: the slave, the alien, the stateless? Thesequestions are formulated broadly to include different approaches, but the panel encouragessubmissions that address these issues concretely through the lens of a particular text or genre.

Abstract Deadline: November 3, 2008 (extended from Nov. 1)Note: All paper proposals must be submitted through the ACLA conference website: http://www.acla.org/acla2009/?page_id=7After clicking on "submit a paper," just select the "The Territories of the Citizen" seminar fromthe menu, and your abstract will go directly to the organizer.

If you have any questions about the seminar, please feel free to e-mail me at:chyde_at_eden.rutgers.edu